Brendan Carr, a Federal Communications Commission commissioner, told Newsmax on Thursday that the agency's recent decision to fast-track the takeover of 200 radio stations by a company tied to billionaire George Soros is something that's never been done before.
The FCC on Sept. 30 approved the transfer of licenses for 200 radio stations to a company controlled by the Fund for Policy Reform, a nonprofit funded by Soros.
"This decision by the commission, which was a partisan 3-2 vote, is entirely unprecedented," the Republican said during an appearance on "The Chris Salcedo Show."
"[T]his is a purchase of over 200 radio stations across 40 different markets all across the country. And when this group came in, this Soros-backed group, they said, 'We have excessive foreign ownership, more than 25%.'
"And when you do that, our rules are very clear: You have to go through this national security review so that agencies can look at the source of that money and whether there's any trade policy concerns, national security concerns that come from it. But here they skipped that entirely," he continued.
"They move right to approving this. Again, we've never done this at the commission level. Now they say, 'Well, don't worry; we'll wall off those foreign investors for a while and then we'll come back to the FCC down the road and run the process.'
"But what this lets them do is get the reins at these stations immediately. Once you do that, you can make programing changes and anything you want. And there's at least a handful of conservative outlets on there, including Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Dana Loesch. So all of them are at risk of being replaced, effective immediately," Carr said, adding the decision to fast-track the process is "illegal in my view."
"The FCC's own rules and the Communications Act, the statute, are very clear. We adopted rules that said if you're going to have excessive foreign ownership, you must first go through this national security process, and only then can the commission reach a decision on the merits.
"And here we're doing it in the reverse order. Again, the commission itself has never done this," he said.
He also said that as the FCC was approving the deal, Alexander Soros, George Soros' son, posted photos on social media of himself with Democrat vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.
"It just sends — even if it's aboveboard — it just sends all the wrong messages. It tells people, I think, that your last name determines how the government is going to treat you," Carr said.
"Just look at Elon Musk. At the same time this is sailing through, the agency previously unlawfully revoked an award that would have ensured that rural Americans got high-speed internet connectivity. So we definitely are seeing, in my view, very much a double standard here."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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